Thembe's Cloth

Thembe’s Cloth is loosely based on Glenda Ralph Hay's childhood growing up in Kokstad, East Griqualand, a small country town in South Africa.

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It explores the friendship between Kristi, a white girl blessed with the privileges apartheid South Africa gave her and Thembe, who suffers under that system. The South African government introduced the apartheid policy to segregate the white, coloured, black and Indian population.

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Thembe is the unexpected daughter of Ellen, a Xhosa farm girl living contentedly with her husband Harrison and son Joseph on the Barnard family dairy farm several hours from Kokstad. Tragedy disrupts Ellen's life, and she must leave her familiar surroundings to work for the Graham family in Kokstad.   

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Thembe spends her early years at Kristi's home and the two children develop a deep bond. They see each other as equals, sisters, blind to their colour difference and disparate social status. The story follows their very different paths as children and adults and the strains that places on their friendship.

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The latter part of the story is how the author imagines life could have turned out for Thembe, and so many others, if not for the constraints of apartheid. 

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Glenda started writing Thembe's Cloth after she lost her beloved mother, Mignon, to cancer. It was too painful to write while her grief was still so raw.

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Resumed many years later, it was also an attempt to express the sheer beauty, rich smells and vibrant sounds of the South Africa Glenda had left, but missed deeply. It is also an attempt to share the deep and colorful culture of the Xhosa people, the second largest of eleven South African tribes.

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